Tracing the historical foundations of the principle of ficta confessio as it occurs in South African civil procedural law is possibly a futile exercise. Based on an Olympian view of civil procedure, the emphasis is on how and why certain rules of modern practice have developed and not on the manner in which the rules are or ought to be applied. The pressure and pragmatism of court practice leave little time for ruminating on the origin and historical development of the rules of pleading, let alone the intrinsic nature of the system within which these rules function. The theory of procedure is distant from the exigencies of practice yet this in itself is not uncommon. There is always tension between science and art, the composer and the musician, the choreographer and the dancer, the inventor and the mechanic, the proceduralist and the practitioner. This article therefore broaches civil procedure in its science-form in contrast to its art-form.

Although the issue of human rights protection is the product of a long history of the struggle for social justice and resistance to oppression in all societies, serious efforts to legally recognise and protect human rights in Africa is very much a post-1990 phenomenon. This came as part of the prolonged fit of "constitutional fever" marked by new or revised constitutions that were ostensibly designed to usher in a new era of democratic governance, constitutionalism, and respect for the rule of law and human rights and end decades of often harsh and inhumane dictatorships. One major sign of the apparent desire of African governments to align with the trend towards the universal recognition of human rights in domestic constitutional law has been the incorporation of bills of rights or provisions designed to protect human rights in most African post-1990 constitutions.

Bills of rights or provisions protecting human rights have particular importance in Africa because of the continent's poor human rights record dating particularly from the colonial period and probably even before then. Whilst bills of rights are not to be seen as the ultimate solution to the problem, they are a crucial part of it. For example, the bill of rights is at the very core of the South African Constitution as a direct result of the gross abuses of human rights that took place during the apartheid period and the desire to "heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights". Whether or not these bills of rights will form the basis on which a human rights conscious culture will be embedded in the African polity remains an open question.

The speech in defence of Cnaeus Plancius was delivered in early autumn 54 BC, immediately before or after the oratio in defence of M Aemilius Scaurus. Cn Plancius won the office of aedilis of the year 54 BC upon which his defeated opponent, M Iuventius Laterensis, charged him with ambitus (bribery, illegal canvassing for office) - something which often happened in Rome. As co-prosecutor, L Cassius Longinus sided with Laterensis while Cicero (and Hortensius) provided the defence. As was his custom, Cicero rose to speak last. The court of justice was chaired by C Alfius Flavus, of whom - in spite of his affiliation to the people's party - Cicero otherwise spoke well.

The aim of this article as a whole is to provide a brief overview of the diverse social meanings attached to food and its consumption within South African prisons during the colonial and apartheid periods. Part one of the article began by focusing on prison dietary scales in colonial Natal. In particular, the origins of racially defined punishment were examined through the lens of the ever changing prison dietary scales which characterised the colonial period. The focus then shifted to the apartheid period, with an exploration of the social meanings attached to prison food during this time. A central theme associated with this period was identified, namely the use of food as an expression of power, dominance and control within South African prisons. One of three subsections into which this central theme is divided in the article as a whole was examined in part one of the article, namely the manner in which prison dietary scales seemed designed to take the freedom out of the food by robbing prisoners' food of all positive social meaning.

Part two of this article will move to a discussion of the second and third subsections referred to in the previous paragraph. The second subsection concerns the manner in which food, and the withholding thereof, was used by the prison authorities as a direct form of punishment, while the third subsection concerns the manner in which the ideology of apartheid literally penetrated South African prison food. Following this, part two of this article will move on to a second central theme, which examines the manner in which food and its (non-) consumption was employed as an active weapon of resistance by prisoners in apartheid jails. In particular the use of hunger strikes in chipping away at the power of the apartheid prison authorities will be discussed. Final conclusions will then be drawn.

In a mixed legal system like the South African one, it might be interesting to compare and draw a link between two doctrines dealing with change of circumstances in relation to the performance of a contract, namely :

Clausula rebus sic stantibus, a well-known expression to designate a legal construction that was present in some ways in Rome, but, more importantly, that has been enlarged by the canonists of the fourteenth century; and

"Hardship", a term with various legal consequences depending on whether it is used in the field of international law of contract, European private law projects or in English common law.

These two doctrines have attributed different roles to the judge, based on the relationship between the judge and statutory law, on the one hand, and the judge and the contract, the so-called "statute of the parties", on the other hand.

It is well known that by the end of the sixteenth century insurance contracts were regularly concluded in both Antwerp and London. Fuelled not only by a growth in overseas trade, but also by the speculative possibilities that the underwriting of marine risks offered capitalist merchants, the practice of marine insurance in particular expanded rapidly in the course of that century.

As far as insurance was concerned, the two cities shared many common features: the Mediterranean origin of the insurance techniques practised there, at first by foreign merchants; the role of their respective bourses as centres for the transaction of insurance contracts; the existence, in an attempt to counter fraudulent practices, of a formal requirement of insurance policy registration in an official insurance office, and, coupled with that, the rudiments of insurance-specific dispute resolution. For present purposes, though, I wish to focus on another common feature: attempts in both cities to set the general customs and rules of insurance down in writing.

Ought a legal text always to be taught and studied in its complete and unabridged form, or would students sometimes benefit by the substitution of an abridgment, summary or compendium for the original text? If the latter is the case, what precisely are the benefits afforded by the use of compendia? Would the answers to these questions depend on whether the law students under instruction are beginners or at an advanced stage of their studies? These are questions of direct and immediate importance for both teachers and students of law, in every legal system and in every age.

Every year, on the invitation of Italian and foreign institutions and scholars, the Gérard Boulvert Society for the Study of European Civilization and for the History of its Legal Systems, in co-operation with the journal Index, announces the Gérard Boulvert International Prize in Roman law. The award in memory of Gérard Boulvert is supported by the Instituto Banco di Napoli Fondazione and aims to encourage the development of research in Roman law and to recognise the works of young scholars of all nationalities published in the previous three years. The evaluation board consists of eminent academics from various countries.